1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for automatically preparing replies to each purchase or non-purchase response generated from mass marketed communications delivered to clients for products or services, such as financial products and/or financial service-related communications. More specifically, it relates to methods and apparatus suitable for preparing an appropriately customized reply communication to each client in a fully automated or significantly automated manner permitting large numbers (millions) of communications to be prepared and delivered quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively.
2. Description of the Related Art
The importance of widely-distributed written or printed client communications such as advertising, solicitations, etc. is well known in the marketing and advertising field. Their applicability to the financial products and services industry also is well known. The revenue generated from sales of various products and services advertised in these solicitations measures in the many millions of dollars per year for all industries. Their revenue generation in the financial industry also has been significant, and this industry has been one of the fastest growing in this area.
Traditionally, client communications of this type have been mass-distributed using techniques such as direct mail. With the increasing use of the Internet, that delivery medium is expected to grow in importance. A substantial drawback of the direct mail (or telemarketing, etc.) approach has always been the relatively significant cost of distributing the communications. The transmitters and distributors of the communications often have been required to bear the expense of the communications themselves, in some cases the envelopes in which they are contained, the labor involved in stuffing the envelopes, the postage, etc. Use of the Internet could eliminate many of these cost factors.
Another disadvantage of traditional mass marketing, especially mass direct marketing, is that it uses a generic communication that is not particularly customized to the needs of a particular client, and partially as a result of this it has a relatively low purchase response rate. Low purchase response rate coupled with high delivery costs reduces the attractiveness and effectiveness of this type of marketing. For example, mass communication by mail may cost of the order of $0.50 for each communication, but this kind of communication has a relatively low “visibility,” and often has a purchase response rate of only about two percent (2% or lower), such as in the case of financial and insurance products. The response to telemarketing, which is somewhat more personalized to the particular client, is significantly higher, often in the range of $2.20 per client contacted.
The issue of customizing mass communications to significantly improve response rates and purchase response rates from a large group of clients (numbering in the hundreds of thousands or up to millions) and/or reducing the cost of delivery of the communications has been addressed in our prior patent applications, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,987,434 and 6,076,072. In the first of these, we described methods for accessing information from large client data bases, analyzing the data according to a predetermined screening and selection model, and preparing a plurality of customized communications, each one specifically addressed to and designed to meet the most likely needs (based on accessed information) of each of the clients or potential clients (“clients”). These communications could be delivered to the clients in any one of a number of ways, including for example direct mail (expensive) or electronically (for example, inexpensively to those clients who have an internet address). It was recognized, however, that the main medium for direct mass communications was delivery through direct mail, and since this method of communication is relatively expensive, our second U.S. patent application, U.S. Ser. No. 08/834,240, addressed this issue. That application discloses a method of providing the customized communication directed to each particular client on a “host communication”i.e., a communication that would in any event have been sent to that particular client. Thus, the cost of including the customized direct marketing communication as part of the host communication is very low, and the additional cost of mailing the combined communication is normally insignificant.
Thus, the technologies disclosed and claimed in our above-described prior patent applications represent significant advances in mass marketing or mass direct marketing, permitting delivery of customized communications to each client, at significantly reduced cost. These technologies do not, however, address the range of permutations of a client's response. For example, a client may want to purchase, elect not to purchase, request further information, request a modification of the product, etc. However, current mass direct marketing typically only takes into account a purchase/no purchase response. Other responses are generally too time consuming and costly to process and reply to individually so that a potentially large number of purchases are foregone. If these clients have concerns or questions about the product that could be responded to in order to facilitate make a purchase decision, the response rate from mass marketing campaigns could be increased, but current mass marketing response generation and delivery methods costs makes this prohibitive for most direct marketed sales campaigns.
There exists a need in direct marketing for an automatic reply mechanism that is flexible, and able to respond to a wide range of client inquiries, in an ongoing “conversational” manner, that will ultimately increase the rate of purchase responses. Moreover, the automatic reply should be directed to each client's specific response or request, be cost effective, and virtually immediate, so that the client's interest in the product is not diminished by delay. Such an automatic reply system should preferably be able to respond by communicating with the client either through mail, facsimile, e-mail, on a host communication, or by the now evolving voice response technologies, depending upon the type of communication suited to the product or service being marketed or customer preference.